Cologne in One Day
Putting on cologne in Cologne…
As promised, I’m going to give you a little mash-up of our short trip to Cologne. It’s the second time I’ve been, last time for the Xmas markets, but because Jason’s not seen the Dom yet and we were literally in the area, plus one of my favourite friends and her dog lives there, we just had to pop in for two days. One day we spent in the lovely shop my friend has and another we explored the town… not only food, but mostly food… ahem…
So, without further ado, here’s what you must see, do and EAT:
I love how the minute you leave the main train station you are at the Dom – it’s enormous and every time I visit a different part is being refurbished. It was super sunny but also super chilly. You can see how massive it actually is if you look very carefully at the tip of the Dom – the bit you can see in the distance is the size of many many Jasons (check the photo below!). You can go inside and poke your head around for free or if you are feeling fit, then there are a ton of steps you can climb to get an epic view, but we were cold and lazy (and on holiday – hello!?)…
Next stop was checking out the Hohenzollern Bridge (all walking distance) to see the locks of love! There were so so so soooooooooooooooo many of them and it looked lovely! Once you’ve attached your personalised lock onto the bridge, you turn the key and throw it into the Rhein River below. I love seeing these all over the world and I’ve never seen this many before. Highly recommended!
Of course we had to eat some cake! TörtchenTörtchen was recommended to us and basically WOW-WEE yum! Just look at those cakes! Mine was divine and we bought a load of macarons to take home with us but we actually ate them on the way out of the shop in the end as they were just amazing. Worth going back to Cologne for…
Then we had a fun dinner at Ha Long Bucht. I actually went to Ha Long Bay in Vietnam and even made my own spring rolls out there at a cooking course, but this was even better! You get a whole load of nommy ingredients and sit for hours making your own spring rolls. It took a while to get the hang of it (the first few were not pretty and I always stuff too much in them), but great fun! You wet the paper very slightly and then quickly put duck, chicken and/or prawns inside along with a load of herbs and nuts and BOOM you gotta wrap it up fast and tight and get it in your mouth! This was brilliant and I can’t wait to go again!
We spent a day in a local pretty village and lots of time painting pottery… but those posts are upcoming, so please be patient! Have you been to Cologne? What did we miss? 🙂
7 Comments
Christie @ A Sausage Has Two
I’ve been to Köln a couple of times, the first time camping on the river (freezing) and then most recently for a WEBMU blogger meetup, where we ate very good Lebanese food not far from the Dom at a place called Beirut. We also had a really, really lovely dinner at Brauerei Päffgen, which I would definitely recommend – although come to think of it, that was 4 years ago! :S
Vanessa Abel
Oooooooh, great comment – I guess I’m going to have to go back immediately! Maybe not for camping though… haha! 🙂
bevchen
Yummy cake!
I first went to Cologne with my school German exchange in around… 1997? ’98? And part of the cathedral was being renovated then! I think they just go round and round and round…
Vanessa Abel
Haha – sounds like St Paul’s Cathedral and pretty much all of Berlin…
Steven Glassman
Climbing the Dom’s spire is totally worthwhile – I got some really nice tall-stuff photographs. Also, you missed a cable car and a chocolate museum…
http://stevenglassman.com/2012/08/27/cologne/
Vanessa Abel
Your photos are amazing – I don’t know if we will get there before we leave, but it will be on my to-do-in-Germany-one-day list and I have extra insiders tips now from your comment – danke!! 🙂
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